It’s been a frustrating year for us Sidekick users. It seems like every television show, periodical, and man in the street is raving about the amazing world-changing capabilities of the iPhone (and, to a lesser extent, the Google Phone). How having a device that can conveniently surf the Web, answer email, run third-party applications and fit in your pocket is as big a technological breakthrough as hovercars.
Which is infuriating to those of us who have been using a superior device for the past five years.
From the very first demo of the iPhone, it was obvious it was a knockoff of the Sidekick. The UI demo Steve Jobs did — calling two people and then merging the calls — is the exact same demo I’d given to all my friends to show off the incredible UI polish and attention to detail by the Sidekick developers. Sure, there were some differences — most notably that Apple’s artists had prettied up the iPhone UI as compared to the 8-bit basement wackos who drew up the Sidekick’s — but it was clear that this was an evolutionary change, not the revolutionary leap everyone made it out to be.
And, when I bought an iPhone, it became clear it wasn’t even an improvement. The touch-keyboard made it impossible to type anything at length (I regularly composed whole articles on my Sidekick), the lack of multitasking made it impossible to queue up articles in the Web browser and read them on the subway (I read several books on the Sidekick), instant messages weren’t even supported, and the swipe-to-scroll method quickly grew tiresome. Within a couple weeks, I sold the phone to a friend (although not before getting an outrageous roaming bill from AT&T because the iPhone couldn’t keep its mouth shut).
For those two weeks, though, I was repeatedly stopped and gawked at by well-dressed people in airports and trains. They all wanted to know “Is that the iPhone?” and “How is it?” By contrast, those people, when they saw me using the Sidekick, assumed it was a videogame device.
But it wasn’t as if the Sidekick was unheard of. As soon as I wandered out of the land of white folks in suits-and-ties, black and latino kids would rush up to me and gab about the Sidekick. During one trip, a latina middle-schooler stopped me on the sidewalk and asked if I’d gotten the latest firmware update yet. “It has JavaScript support!” she enthused. Browsing the Sidekick user forums bore this out — it was all black and latino schoolchildren.
But, of course, neither minorities nor schoolchildren rule the world, so the Sidekick has been written out of history. 2007 was the first time anyone had thought to give a smartphone a decent UI, or a web browser, or an over-the-air application store. Well, at least it was the first time anyone thought to tell white people.
The Sidekick was fantastic. I was an over-enthusiastic fan since the day they came out and used Sidekicks for about 3-4 years. In my opinion, the problem with their demise wasn’t their fault, it was T-Mobile’s. Danger wanted to continue developing a kick-ass device and T-Mobile wanted to make the device hip to the hip hop crowd and ballers. One would think you could have both but the features in later models were driven more by T-Mobile and T-Mobile would actually suppress features that were available on the Hiptop in other markets.
It was no surprise that Andy Rubin and others left Danger to start Android.
posted by Aaron Landry
on December 12, 2008 #
I owned both the sidekick 2 and 3. They were great machines, I loved being able use AIM, and the keyboard was amazing. However for me there were a few things that really killed it for me:
size and form factor. Sorry, the freaking thing was huge and beefy. For those of us without purses, it was a PITA.
Media player … personally I like listening to music and I like carrying only one device. It’s just way easier on the iPhone.
With regards to the keyboard … when the iPhone does let you use the keyboard in landscape mode (which is exceedingly rare), it’s actually not that bad. There’s definitely a rabid group of iPhone users out there who are clamoring and praying for expanded use of the landscape mode.
posted by Alex
on December 12, 2008 #
I don’t think the racial overtone you’re attributing is entirely fair; Paris Hilton was a well-known Sidekick user, and you don’t get much whiter. Though I accept your core point: the Sidekick wasn’t seen as a “serious” phone. I wonder if that’s because it’s better at texting than voice, and tech journalists don’t take texting seriously?
posted by Keith
on December 12, 2008 #
I know we all seem to think what we have is the best, but I had a sidekick, then moved to blackberry, and now an iPhone. The sidekick is indeed revolutionary for it’s time, but doesn’t even compare to the iPhone (post app store era). I use my iPhone as my store rewards cards, I make restaurant reservations via open table, it encompasses my iPod, visual voicemail, recognizes songs, has voice search, integrated google maps with street view, acts as a pedometer, a multitude of games that require a touch screen, syncs over the air to my google calendar and contacts- I can go on and on but I think that’s enough to discount an iPhone comparison. I typed all this in about a minute. You just have to get used to it.
posted by Robin
on December 12, 2008 #
I know we all seem to think what we have is the best, but I had a sidekick, then moved to blackberry, and now an iPhone. The sidekick is indeed revolutionary for it’s time, but doesn’t even compare to the iPhone (post app store era). I use my iPhone as my store rewards cards, I make restaurant reservations via open table, it encompasses my iPod, visual voicemail, recognizes songs, has voice search, integrated google maps with street view, acts as a pedometer, a multitude of games that require a touch screen, syncs over the air to my google calendar and contacts- I can go on and on but I think that’s enough to discount an iPhone comparison. I typed all this in about a minute. You just have to get used to it.
posted by Robin
on December 12, 2008 #
“From the very first demo of the iPhone, it was obvious it was a knockoff of the Sidekick.”
You lost me at this ridiculous statement - was it the iPhone’s flip up screen or physical keyboard that screamed Sidekick knockoff to you?
If you are happy using your Sidekick, then more power to you, but all the whining that other people don’t think your device is cool is pretty pathetic.
posted by sfmitch
on December 12, 2008 #
I was a sidekick user before switching to iPhone. It was fun while it lasted and had a lot going for it, but I don’t miss its size, build quality (the all plastic everything made for a lot of scratches), unpretty UI and graphics quality, lack of media player, and inelegant sync to my Mac.
posted by josh
on December 12, 2008 #
Just shut up & quite your whining. You’re living proof that sidekick users are just a bunch if brats who has nothing better to do with their time. As for the black & Latino comment, guess most of those with such ethnic backgrounds are brats too.
posted by Jeff
on December 12, 2008 #
Thanks, I’ve been meaning to write essentially this article for months now.
If you’ve ever programmed the Sidekick, you’d find all this doubly annoying. Data stores, automatically synced over the network, all the time. Tens of apps running all the time in 32 MB RAM. Seamless data sharing, a real clipboard, even multiple undo in text editing. None of this single-tasking crap in 128 MB RAM or need to run your own backend service just so your data persists.
Unfortunately around the time of the Sidekick 3, with the exception of the improvements from moving to 2D navigation, the UI started to suck (examples: the incredibly complex but obnoxious to use music player; the Bluetooth support). Of course that just happened because of the mass exodus from Danger.
What’s worse is that nobody learned enough from the Sidekick. The comments above just demonstrate the typical response to the platform, which was more or less the result of the target demographic and poor marketing. My 65-year-old-mom had a Sidekick too, and loved it.
I finally gave in and bought an iPod touch a few weeks ago, and I’m beginning to get used to its usage patterns, but I’d certainly never try to do messaging on it.
And yeah, if T-Mobile hadn’t been so short-sighted, the Sidekick would have been the iPhone.
posted by Nicholas Riley
on December 12, 2008 #
Maybe you should try the iPhone again. A lot of your problems have been solved with 3rd party applications or software updates.
- Instapaper will save articles for offline reading.
- Stanza and Classics offer first-rate ebook reading.
- A dozen free and paid applications offer instant messaging.
- Data roaming can be disabled since the 1.1.1 update.
posted by Cameron Hunt
on December 12, 2008 #
I’ve never owned an iPhone or a Sidekick, but for what it’s worth, I immediately thought “Paris Hilton” when I heard Sidekick, too. My second association is with tween girls. And whoever they sell Bratz to. So I guess that would probably fall in with your argument a little. But I think you may have been a little knee jerk in the racial department. I think it’s a class boundary at work in the demographic here, not a racial one. The racial thing, of course, is implicit, but there you go.
posted by Jonathan
on December 12, 2008 #
I feel your pain but the reality is that “gadgets” and any other consumer product are much more than pure technical capability. After all, why do Mac fans love their computers - certainly not because they can do more - but because the way they do it is easier or more visually appealing or whatever.
Beta was better technically but lost to VHS for non-technical reasons. Apple markets to an audience that for the most part buys on experience not technology - the two are NOT one in the same. MS prides itself on tech and just copies Apple’s UI lead. Which one is the better business to be in? Time will tell.
The iPhone is a success not necessarily because it IS better technically but because the market BELIEVES it is. That’s business axiom that none of us will ever change - ever.
I personally switched from Blackberry to iPhone and although it’s pretty sexy I have some serious issues with it. The email client is poor and the lack of an option to turn off loading images is just stupid if not downright dangerous. If they don’t fix that and a few other things I’m going back to BB. But will the few that care about those things matter to the overall market?
This is just business and I think your racial comments are unwarranted. Of all the companies I know Apple is one of the few that is a leader in addressing concerns of minorities (language/disabilites etc).
You may be right, Apple wasn’t the first. Hell, everyone thinks MS stole the mouse idea from Apple but Apple stole it from Xerox PARC. Personally I don’t care or have the energy to worry about who’s first or why. It’s good to know the truth but in the end - does it really matter?
posted by Steve
on December 12, 2008 #
As a former Treo user turned iPhone user, I feel your pain, sort of. It’s certainly true that the iPhone was nowhere near as revolutionary as its press releases insisted, but instead built carefully on a base that Palm and Danger had built carefully over the last 5-10 years.
But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Palm spent ten solid years shooting themselves in the foot so often than they’re now hobbling on stumps by failing to execute on not one but three next-gen OS strategies. Danger had a great prototype, but ended up being forced to tie themselves to the sinking, un-captained ship that is T-Mobile. Apple waited until the right moment and then pounced, synthesizing (mostly) the best of everyone else’s ideas at a time when the underlying hardware had matured to the point when the vision could be implemented with fewer compromises, and combined that with enough retail muscle to beat a carrier into submission.
Don’t mourn, organize: the Android SDK is there, waiting to be downloaded.
posted by Doctor Memory
on December 12, 2008 #
It’s the formfactor, feel, and weight. The Sidekick never felt right in my hands, and always felt entirely too bulky.
posted by Joseph
on December 12, 2008 #
I used to read articles like this from Amiga owners, comparing their computers to early Macs. They had some good points, but the Amiga is gone. The Sidekick will be soon as well.
posted by Bruce McL
on December 12, 2008 #
yeah damn the white man and his iphones brother preach it
posted by
on December 12, 2008 #
I owned a Sidekick 1 and now I have an iPhone. The Sidekick was, no doubt, an amazing device for its time. But the quality, fit-and-finish, and nearly every measurement is outdone by the iPhone. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
posted by Billy Brandon
on December 12, 2008 #
wow, i spent a bunch of this time on nokia/symbian, which, if judged by reading this, seems overly marketed to aliens and never made it down the gravity well. i finally gave up due to a complete dearth of US support and moved to BB, after less than a week with an iphone i hated. but there’s a lot i miss about my nokia still. i loved the little apps out there, and the fact that my nokia worked as a phone for me, and the other smart phones don’t do anywhere near as well. also they take gorgeous pictures- even at low res, they are just prettier than anyone else’s. nokias are indestructible, and i tried. i never wrote on anything on a phone as long and well as i did on my e61i, and opera was a dream.
and a cntl key! none of you can step to that.
ok, i’ve made myself sad now.
posted by quinn
on December 12, 2008 #
Jealous?
posted by Chris
on December 12, 2008 #
Maybe in the US this all matters. Outside the US?
posted by d
on December 12, 2008 #
don’t let anyone tell you there wasn’t a racial bias. there was.
and a class bias. and a bias against tweeners, too, especially
girls who pasted those glitter doo-dads all over the machine.
the sidekick was kickass, and i never could understand why
nobody seemed to notice it, including the gadget freaks…
-bowerbird
posted by bowerbird
on December 12, 2008 #
Steve said: “Hell, everyone thinks MS stole the mouse idea from Apple but Apple stole it from Xerox PARC.”
The mouse was not invented by Xerox, but by Douglas Engelbart, who presented it in 1968. Xerox came up with several other ideas which Apple licensed (not stole) from Xerox. Apple also added a bunch of significant ideas to the Mac OS which had never been done before.
Overall, if you look at the UI of the original Mac, it was probably 1/3 from Engelbart and other early inventors, 1/3 from Xerox, and 1/3 from Apple.
Here’s a popular story article on this subject:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt
posted by Tom Ross
on December 12, 2008 #
My problem with the Sidekick (and I got my BWSK the day they came out, continued on to the color and SK2) was that the hardware was such amazing garbage. I had my BWSK replaced 6 times, finally with a color. I went through 4 colors before upgrading to the SK2. I went through 3 SK2s before giving up on the platform altogether.
The phones would be fine for a month or so, but eventually calls would get noisier and noisier, the scroll wheel or screen would fail, or the screen flip switch would fail. I was so frustrated by their complete inability to make decent hardware (even after the switch to Sharp) that I ended up replacing it with a generic Samsung non-smartphone which actually worked 100% of the time (for years).
posted by Sean Graham
on December 12, 2008 #
With Tom Ross here.
I went through three Sidekicks - two SK2s and one SK3 - and they all each developed some issue(s), be it the screen, the keyboard, the swiveling of the screen, actual calls, all to the point where they were no longer useful.
The OS and interface was good enough for me but their hardware is garbage. I’ll never buy another Sidekick.
posted by e
on December 12, 2008 #
I had a Hiptop 2 for a couple of years and quite enjoyed it. When I had the opportunity to move to an iPhone however, I jumped at it without looking back. The hiptop did a bunch of stuff better such as typing and background IM handling. Additionally the third party applications seemed to have a lot more flexibility than they do on the iPhone. Overall however, the iPhone is so much nicer to use. Almost every day I access one website or another that works smoothly on the iPhone that would not work (or be incredibly painful) on the Hiptop. I love the iPod aspect to the iPhone, that the hiptop cannot compete with. While there was an on-phone application store, there was only one or two free apps (which both sucked) and everything else was very expensive and ugly… on the iPhone however, there are hundreds of free apps, and dozens of great free applications. Additionally the paid ones are largely inexpensive enough to buy without having to think about it too much.
Anyway, while I can agree with the argument that many of the “innovations” of the iPhone were originally available in the Hiptop, I think that the Hiptop is so far behind today that it is unfair to the hiptop to compare them.
posted by Colin McKellar
on December 12, 2008 #
I’m going to have to chime in with the others and say that the sidekick had great potential but was really just junk. Have you ever seen a sidekick after it’s been used heavily? The keyboards fall apart, it shows every little scratch, and the screens are constantly breaking off. Every sidekick user I know has gone through multiple phones due to how poor the construction is. Those people also happen to be white, which I also think is a complete non-issue here. They are bulky and were never pocket-worthy. And I rarely saw anybody using anything besides the default applications, and the only people that seemed to love them were the ones who would rather type on AIM in social situations than actually converse with those around them. And as someone else pointed out, the iphone does not resemble the sidekick in form whatsoever.
posted by Justin
on December 12, 2008 #
I loved my sidekicks (over 12 of them due to crummy build quality) but there was a distinct lack of revolution between each model. I started a month after release with the b/w and continued to support the platform until the LX. It was disappointingly easy to predict what the next model would have. Whether this was Danger or Tmobile’s fault was moot.
Speaking as a developer with published apps on both platforms the hiptop was a dream to program for in terms of power. You were not sandboxed at all like you are on the iPhone. However the iPhone obviously has way more storage guaranteed so apps can be very complex.
In response to your article, the sidekick was never as mainstream as the iPhone because of marketing and buzz. The original sidekick release barely made any noise, compare that to the original iPhone release which had people salivating for months after the announcement and months before that with insane rumors. I do miss my sidekick a lot, however after kicking my aim habit I was able to adapt quite well to the iPhone. I also think your racial comparisons are coming from left field, Tmobile markets to the hip-hop demographic, not any ethnicity in particular.
posted by Brandon
on December 12, 2008 #
Posted by STEVE:
“Apple markets to an audience that for the most part buys on experience not technology - the two are NOT one in the same. MS prides itself on tech and just copies Apple’s UI lead. Which one is the better business to be in? Time will tell.”
This statement is seriously laughable. Apple is ahead of the game on both User Experience AND Technology. Microsoft got lucky and very early in the game. Steve got kicked out of Apple just when it was beginning which hobbled Apple greatly. Just because Microsoft can write bigger checks doesn’t make them a better tech company.
And the “which one is the better business to be in, time will tell” nonsense shows just where your head is — Money. You and Ballmer would be great buds, sitting back, tipping a few and talking about them greenbacks and it’s what speaks of success. And yet, you two would be wrong.
As far as MS and their “pride” on tech … what did Vista bring to the table but (as Steve recently put it) a “Bag of Hurt”? Apple’s OS is perfect, but they are hard at work at bringing serious changes to it with Snow Leopard. Their computers are nothing short of beautiful and ANYTHING you can do on a PC can be done better, faster and with greater pleasure on a MAC, including running Windows.
Yes, MS copies Apple - as do many of the companies who are now clamouring to answer Apple’s iPhone.
I’d rather be in the company of those who are actually innovating.
posted by James Gowan
on December 12, 2008 #
Posted by STEVE:
“The iPhone is a success not necessarily because it IS better technically but because the market BELIEVES it is. That’s business axiom that none of us will ever change - ever.”
Steve, so — since greenbacks and business axioms are you thing, put your money where your mouth is and tell us what phone you think IS “better technically”. I’d love to hear.
As long as people can get Free phones with their services, we may never knows what everyone would truly prefer. Millions untold go for the inferior free tech. So it’s not about people always getting the best tech — ever. With 3G and GPS and the App Store, the iPhone is certainly ONE of the best phones available, you have to give it that. I think the browser experience is tops and Video and Audio has certainly never been better on any other phone. Having access to the WiFi iTunes store (and 7 or 8 million songs) is certainly another huge feather in Apple’s cap.
And Steve, remember: better is not just a laundry list of features.
posted by James Gowan
on December 12, 2008 #
I always wanted to love the sidekick, it SHOULD have been great but it was just SO closed.
Maybe I just wasn’t aware of it but the hacker dev community on the iphone is great and opens up so many possibilities. With the sidekick I couldn’t even get my im type of choice.
Of course I was in Australia at the time and getting a sidekick at all was difficult.
posted by scott parsons
on December 12, 2008 #
I can’t help but see this blog post as nothing more than the bitter ranting of a sore loser that possibly has racial issues to deal with.
Really, anyone that’s going to make the case that the iPhone is a knock off of a side kick is just absurd. I appreciate you mentioning that up front as lose your credibility right up front. In this way, the rest of the article can be read strictly for entertainment purposes.
I’m not knocking the Sidekick. It’s a decent phone. No doubt, there will be some things that it (and many other competitors) do better than the iPhone. However, taken as a whole, the iPhone is in a class by itself. From a user experience perspective, the iPhone has set the bar so high that other “decent phones” simply fall of the radar as they just don’t matter. That may be a harsh reality, but it is reality nonetheless. It is software that distinguishes one smart phone from another. Few companies understand this are are equipped to challenge Apple here. RIM has a lot of momentum going and will be a player for quite a while primarily due to the corporate market. Android is the only OS that currently has the potential to compete. As we’ve seen from the G1, they still have a bit of polish to before they’re a real challenger.
posted by Steve
on December 12, 2008 #
@Steve: Beta was better technically but lost to VHS for non-technical reasons. Apple markets to an audience that for the most part buys on experience not technology - the two are NOT one in the same. MS prides itself on tech and just copies Apple’s UI lead. Which one is the better business to be in? Time will tell.
As with the claim that Apple borrowed its UI from PARC, your first claim is an urban legend. More importantly, your distinction is a false one, a point Apple continually tries to make. The UI — the “experience” — is not something that one slaps on top of “technology,” but something that must be integrated into the whole. Otherwise you get horrid inventions like the Blackberry Storm.
In a testing laboratory, Beta (supposedly) had higher picture quality, but that’s not the same thing as being “better technically.” (In the real world, on the shelf at the store, consumers couldn’t tell much difference in quality.) More importantly, though, is that Beta tapes had little capacity. You couldn’t put a whole movie on one; it only could hold one hour of video. That’s not a “non-technical reason.” That’s experience, which is a technical reason.
Don’t confuse something like the color of an iPhone with the design of it. The former may be non-technical; the latter is not.
posted by David Nieporent
on December 12, 2008 #
@Steve:
“The iPhone is a success not necessarily because it IS better technically but because the market BELIEVES it is. That’s business axiom that none of us will ever change - ever.”
You’re almost right. It’s not that the market believes the iPhone to be technically superior, it’s that the vast majority of the market doesn’t care about technical superiority.
The iPhone is sexy, well-marketed, and - the most important part - EASY AND FUN TO USE. All its technical limitations and compromises were made to make the average user happy. Apple excels at build quality, style, and user experience, and it’s why their product share continues to grow at the expense of others’.
The Sidekick was a great device, and if the original crew were still designing new revisions, it would give the iPhone a run for its money within certain market segments (people who type a lot, tech savvy people). But that’s not the reality, sadly, and the iPhone has simply out-competed the Sidekick.
posted by Darren
on December 12, 2008 #
Oh please. The iPhone kicks the sidekicks ass. You’re delusional.
posted by dave
on December 12, 2008 #
I used my sidekick every day since it came out and never had to replace it. The thing was indestructible — I repeatedly dropped it down stairs and stepped on it and used it in the rain with no problems.
Still works today, although the keyboard is peeling a little. Wonder why everyone else had such a different experience.
posted by Aaron Swartz
on December 12, 2008 #
“it was obvious [the iPhone] was a knockoff of the Sidekick”
This is just a completely idiotic statement. No matter how good the Sidekick is (was?).
posted by pwb
on December 12, 2008 #
Android, and the G1 in particular, should serve sidekick users well. It combines most what’s good about the IPhone, (strong browser with touchscreen), and the Sidekick, (good keyboard, trackball). It’s definitely not perfect, there are core applications that still need improvement, but they will be improved.
posted by mathiastck
on December 12, 2008 #
I second the recommendation for Instapaper - it’s an addiction-enabler for voracious reading addicts like myself. It does all kinds of cool reformatting, like stripping comments from blog posts and other administrative debris. Plus, as an added bonus, articles are also available on the regular browser version as well, so you can flip back and forth between iphone and desktop reading as needed. I got hooked on the web version before the iphone app, actually.
posted by Al Abut
on December 13, 2008 #
The iPhone was much more than evolutionary. It’s just hard to see this because the iPhone does what it does so well. I don’t think I truly had a grasp of this until I got a chance to try the BlackBerry Storm… it’s only by the comparison that the problems Apple wrestled with and overcome become clearer. For instance, it becomes clear that the “physics” of scrollable lists (momentum, etc.) wasn’t a gratuitous nicety or eye-candy… it was important to making the touch interface viable at all.
There’s no question the iPhone’s keyboard is its weakest point, but Jobs must have (correctly) identified a significant target market for which the overall experience, including size savings from not having a keyboard, was more important. Moreover, this decision forced Apple into not relying on the keyboard as a crutch, which likely paid dividends in other parts of the interface (compare the G1 for example, where the keyboard is at times a crutch). That said, I suspect a keyboard-bearing version of the iPhone is closer than most people think.
posted by Alan Yeung
on December 13, 2008 #
I had never seen a Sidekick in person, but recognized one in a couple scenes in a movie I watched last night. I think that the biggest problem with the Sidekick was its enormous size. The thing looked as big as a Newton, and I suspect that one could make similar arguments about the fact that it did not take the world by storm either.
“Not quite” often makes for a huge chasm to cross in consumer acceptance.
posted by Bret
on December 14, 2008 #
Absolutely. When folks asked me if I was buying the iPhone when it first came out, I’d always reply “Nope, I’ve already owned a Sidekick.” And then they’d look at me like I’d said the most illogical thing ever uttered. I blame T-Mobile and their youth-only marketing. But some people like Marc Cuban saw through it all, even back in 2004 — http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/2004/09/mark_cuban_give.html
posted by Noah
on December 15, 2008 #
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Comments
The Sidekick was fantastic. I was an over-enthusiastic fan since the day they came out and used Sidekicks for about 3-4 years. In my opinion, the problem with their demise wasn’t their fault, it was T-Mobile’s. Danger wanted to continue developing a kick-ass device and T-Mobile wanted to make the device hip to the hip hop crowd and ballers. One would think you could have both but the features in later models were driven more by T-Mobile and T-Mobile would actually suppress features that were available on the Hiptop in other markets.
It was no surprise that Andy Rubin and others left Danger to start Android.
posted by Aaron Landry on December 12, 2008 #
I owned both the sidekick 2 and 3. They were great machines, I loved being able use AIM, and the keyboard was amazing. However for me there were a few things that really killed it for me:
size and form factor. Sorry, the freaking thing was huge and beefy. For those of us without purses, it was a PITA.
Media player … personally I like listening to music and I like carrying only one device. It’s just way easier on the iPhone.
With regards to the keyboard … when the iPhone does let you use the keyboard in landscape mode (which is exceedingly rare), it’s actually not that bad. There’s definitely a rabid group of iPhone users out there who are clamoring and praying for expanded use of the landscape mode.
posted by Alex on December 12, 2008 #
I don’t think the racial overtone you’re attributing is entirely fair; Paris Hilton was a well-known Sidekick user, and you don’t get much whiter. Though I accept your core point: the Sidekick wasn’t seen as a “serious” phone. I wonder if that’s because it’s better at texting than voice, and tech journalists don’t take texting seriously?
posted by Keith on December 12, 2008 #
I know we all seem to think what we have is the best, but I had a sidekick, then moved to blackberry, and now an iPhone. The sidekick is indeed revolutionary for it’s time, but doesn’t even compare to the iPhone (post app store era). I use my iPhone as my store rewards cards, I make restaurant reservations via open table, it encompasses my iPod, visual voicemail, recognizes songs, has voice search, integrated google maps with street view, acts as a pedometer, a multitude of games that require a touch screen, syncs over the air to my google calendar and contacts- I can go on and on but I think that’s enough to discount an iPhone comparison. I typed all this in about a minute. You just have to get used to it.
posted by Robin on December 12, 2008 #
I know we all seem to think what we have is the best, but I had a sidekick, then moved to blackberry, and now an iPhone. The sidekick is indeed revolutionary for it’s time, but doesn’t even compare to the iPhone (post app store era). I use my iPhone as my store rewards cards, I make restaurant reservations via open table, it encompasses my iPod, visual voicemail, recognizes songs, has voice search, integrated google maps with street view, acts as a pedometer, a multitude of games that require a touch screen, syncs over the air to my google calendar and contacts- I can go on and on but I think that’s enough to discount an iPhone comparison. I typed all this in about a minute. You just have to get used to it.
posted by Robin on December 12, 2008 #
“From the very first demo of the iPhone, it was obvious it was a knockoff of the Sidekick.”
You lost me at this ridiculous statement - was it the iPhone’s flip up screen or physical keyboard that screamed Sidekick knockoff to you?
If you are happy using your Sidekick, then more power to you, but all the whining that other people don’t think your device is cool is pretty pathetic.
posted by sfmitch on December 12, 2008 #
I was a sidekick user before switching to iPhone. It was fun while it lasted and had a lot going for it, but I don’t miss its size, build quality (the all plastic everything made for a lot of scratches), unpretty UI and graphics quality, lack of media player, and inelegant sync to my Mac.
posted by josh on December 12, 2008 #
Just shut up & quite your whining. You’re living proof that sidekick users are just a bunch if brats who has nothing better to do with their time. As for the black & Latino comment, guess most of those with such ethnic backgrounds are brats too.
posted by Jeff on December 12, 2008 #
Thanks, I’ve been meaning to write essentially this article for months now.
If you’ve ever programmed the Sidekick, you’d find all this doubly annoying. Data stores, automatically synced over the network, all the time. Tens of apps running all the time in 32 MB RAM. Seamless data sharing, a real clipboard, even multiple undo in text editing. None of this single-tasking crap in 128 MB RAM or need to run your own backend service just so your data persists.
Unfortunately around the time of the Sidekick 3, with the exception of the improvements from moving to 2D navigation, the UI started to suck (examples: the incredibly complex but obnoxious to use music player; the Bluetooth support). Of course that just happened because of the mass exodus from Danger.
What’s worse is that nobody learned enough from the Sidekick. The comments above just demonstrate the typical response to the platform, which was more or less the result of the target demographic and poor marketing. My 65-year-old-mom had a Sidekick too, and loved it.
I finally gave in and bought an iPod touch a few weeks ago, and I’m beginning to get used to its usage patterns, but I’d certainly never try to do messaging on it.
And yeah, if T-Mobile hadn’t been so short-sighted, the Sidekick would have been the iPhone.
posted by Nicholas Riley on December 12, 2008 #
Maybe you should try the iPhone again. A lot of your problems have been solved with 3rd party applications or software updates.
posted by Cameron Hunt on December 12, 2008 #
I’ve never owned an iPhone or a Sidekick, but for what it’s worth, I immediately thought “Paris Hilton” when I heard Sidekick, too. My second association is with tween girls. And whoever they sell Bratz to. So I guess that would probably fall in with your argument a little. But I think you may have been a little knee jerk in the racial department. I think it’s a class boundary at work in the demographic here, not a racial one. The racial thing, of course, is implicit, but there you go.
posted by Jonathan on December 12, 2008 #
I feel your pain but the reality is that “gadgets” and any other consumer product are much more than pure technical capability. After all, why do Mac fans love their computers - certainly not because they can do more - but because the way they do it is easier or more visually appealing or whatever.
Beta was better technically but lost to VHS for non-technical reasons. Apple markets to an audience that for the most part buys on experience not technology - the two are NOT one in the same. MS prides itself on tech and just copies Apple’s UI lead. Which one is the better business to be in? Time will tell.
The iPhone is a success not necessarily because it IS better technically but because the market BELIEVES it is. That’s business axiom that none of us will ever change - ever.
I personally switched from Blackberry to iPhone and although it’s pretty sexy I have some serious issues with it. The email client is poor and the lack of an option to turn off loading images is just stupid if not downright dangerous. If they don’t fix that and a few other things I’m going back to BB. But will the few that care about those things matter to the overall market?
This is just business and I think your racial comments are unwarranted. Of all the companies I know Apple is one of the few that is a leader in addressing concerns of minorities (language/disabilites etc).
You may be right, Apple wasn’t the first. Hell, everyone thinks MS stole the mouse idea from Apple but Apple stole it from Xerox PARC. Personally I don’t care or have the energy to worry about who’s first or why. It’s good to know the truth but in the end - does it really matter?
posted by Steve on December 12, 2008 #
As a former Treo user turned iPhone user, I feel your pain, sort of. It’s certainly true that the iPhone was nowhere near as revolutionary as its press releases insisted, but instead built carefully on a base that Palm and Danger had built carefully over the last 5-10 years.
But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Palm spent ten solid years shooting themselves in the foot so often than they’re now hobbling on stumps by failing to execute on not one but three next-gen OS strategies. Danger had a great prototype, but ended up being forced to tie themselves to the sinking, un-captained ship that is T-Mobile. Apple waited until the right moment and then pounced, synthesizing (mostly) the best of everyone else’s ideas at a time when the underlying hardware had matured to the point when the vision could be implemented with fewer compromises, and combined that with enough retail muscle to beat a carrier into submission.
Don’t mourn, organize: the Android SDK is there, waiting to be downloaded.
posted by Doctor Memory on December 12, 2008 #
It’s the formfactor, feel, and weight. The Sidekick never felt right in my hands, and always felt entirely too bulky.
posted by Joseph on December 12, 2008 #
I used to read articles like this from Amiga owners, comparing their computers to early Macs. They had some good points, but the Amiga is gone. The Sidekick will be soon as well.
posted by Bruce McL on December 12, 2008 #
yeah damn the white man and his iphones brother preach it
posted by on December 12, 2008 #
I owned a Sidekick 1 and now I have an iPhone. The Sidekick was, no doubt, an amazing device for its time. But the quality, fit-and-finish, and nearly every measurement is outdone by the iPhone. That’s the way it goes sometimes.
posted by Billy Brandon on December 12, 2008 #
wow, i spent a bunch of this time on nokia/symbian, which, if judged by reading this, seems overly marketed to aliens and never made it down the gravity well. i finally gave up due to a complete dearth of US support and moved to BB, after less than a week with an iphone i hated. but there’s a lot i miss about my nokia still. i loved the little apps out there, and the fact that my nokia worked as a phone for me, and the other smart phones don’t do anywhere near as well. also they take gorgeous pictures- even at low res, they are just prettier than anyone else’s. nokias are indestructible, and i tried. i never wrote on anything on a phone as long and well as i did on my e61i, and opera was a dream.
and a cntl key! none of you can step to that.
ok, i’ve made myself sad now.
posted by quinn on December 12, 2008 #
Jealous?
posted by Chris on December 12, 2008 #
Maybe in the US this all matters. Outside the US?
posted by d on December 12, 2008 #
don’t let anyone tell you there wasn’t a racial bias. there was. and a class bias. and a bias against tweeners, too, especially girls who pasted those glitter doo-dads all over the machine.
the sidekick was kickass, and i never could understand why nobody seemed to notice it, including the gadget freaks…
-bowerbird
posted by bowerbird on December 12, 2008 #
Steve said: “Hell, everyone thinks MS stole the mouse idea from Apple but Apple stole it from Xerox PARC.”
The mouse was not invented by Xerox, but by Douglas Engelbart, who presented it in 1968. Xerox came up with several other ideas which Apple licensed (not stole) from Xerox. Apple also added a bunch of significant ideas to the Mac OS which had never been done before.
Overall, if you look at the UI of the original Mac, it was probably 1/3 from Engelbart and other early inventors, 1/3 from Xerox, and 1/3 from Apple.
Here’s a popular story article on this subject: http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=On_Xerox,_Apple_and_Progress.txt
posted by Tom Ross on December 12, 2008 #
My problem with the Sidekick (and I got my BWSK the day they came out, continued on to the color and SK2) was that the hardware was such amazing garbage. I had my BWSK replaced 6 times, finally with a color. I went through 4 colors before upgrading to the SK2. I went through 3 SK2s before giving up on the platform altogether.
The phones would be fine for a month or so, but eventually calls would get noisier and noisier, the scroll wheel or screen would fail, or the screen flip switch would fail. I was so frustrated by their complete inability to make decent hardware (even after the switch to Sharp) that I ended up replacing it with a generic Samsung non-smartphone which actually worked 100% of the time (for years).
posted by Sean Graham on December 12, 2008 #
With Tom Ross here.
I went through three Sidekicks - two SK2s and one SK3 - and they all each developed some issue(s), be it the screen, the keyboard, the swiveling of the screen, actual calls, all to the point where they were no longer useful.
The OS and interface was good enough for me but their hardware is garbage. I’ll never buy another Sidekick.
posted by e on December 12, 2008 #
I had a Hiptop 2 for a couple of years and quite enjoyed it. When I had the opportunity to move to an iPhone however, I jumped at it without looking back. The hiptop did a bunch of stuff better such as typing and background IM handling. Additionally the third party applications seemed to have a lot more flexibility than they do on the iPhone. Overall however, the iPhone is so much nicer to use. Almost every day I access one website or another that works smoothly on the iPhone that would not work (or be incredibly painful) on the Hiptop. I love the iPod aspect to the iPhone, that the hiptop cannot compete with. While there was an on-phone application store, there was only one or two free apps (which both sucked) and everything else was very expensive and ugly… on the iPhone however, there are hundreds of free apps, and dozens of great free applications. Additionally the paid ones are largely inexpensive enough to buy without having to think about it too much.
Anyway, while I can agree with the argument that many of the “innovations” of the iPhone were originally available in the Hiptop, I think that the Hiptop is so far behind today that it is unfair to the hiptop to compare them.
posted by Colin McKellar on December 12, 2008 #
I’m going to have to chime in with the others and say that the sidekick had great potential but was really just junk. Have you ever seen a sidekick after it’s been used heavily? The keyboards fall apart, it shows every little scratch, and the screens are constantly breaking off. Every sidekick user I know has gone through multiple phones due to how poor the construction is. Those people also happen to be white, which I also think is a complete non-issue here. They are bulky and were never pocket-worthy. And I rarely saw anybody using anything besides the default applications, and the only people that seemed to love them were the ones who would rather type on AIM in social situations than actually converse with those around them. And as someone else pointed out, the iphone does not resemble the sidekick in form whatsoever.
posted by Justin on December 12, 2008 #
I loved my sidekicks (over 12 of them due to crummy build quality) but there was a distinct lack of revolution between each model. I started a month after release with the b/w and continued to support the platform until the LX. It was disappointingly easy to predict what the next model would have. Whether this was Danger or Tmobile’s fault was moot.
Speaking as a developer with published apps on both platforms the hiptop was a dream to program for in terms of power. You were not sandboxed at all like you are on the iPhone. However the iPhone obviously has way more storage guaranteed so apps can be very complex.
In response to your article, the sidekick was never as mainstream as the iPhone because of marketing and buzz. The original sidekick release barely made any noise, compare that to the original iPhone release which had people salivating for months after the announcement and months before that with insane rumors. I do miss my sidekick a lot, however after kicking my aim habit I was able to adapt quite well to the iPhone. I also think your racial comparisons are coming from left field, Tmobile markets to the hip-hop demographic, not any ethnicity in particular.
posted by Brandon on December 12, 2008 #
Posted by STEVE: “Apple markets to an audience that for the most part buys on experience not technology - the two are NOT one in the same. MS prides itself on tech and just copies Apple’s UI lead. Which one is the better business to be in? Time will tell.”
This statement is seriously laughable. Apple is ahead of the game on both User Experience AND Technology. Microsoft got lucky and very early in the game. Steve got kicked out of Apple just when it was beginning which hobbled Apple greatly. Just because Microsoft can write bigger checks doesn’t make them a better tech company.
And the “which one is the better business to be in, time will tell” nonsense shows just where your head is — Money. You and Ballmer would be great buds, sitting back, tipping a few and talking about them greenbacks and it’s what speaks of success. And yet, you two would be wrong.
As far as MS and their “pride” on tech … what did Vista bring to the table but (as Steve recently put it) a “Bag of Hurt”? Apple’s OS is perfect, but they are hard at work at bringing serious changes to it with Snow Leopard. Their computers are nothing short of beautiful and ANYTHING you can do on a PC can be done better, faster and with greater pleasure on a MAC, including running Windows.
Yes, MS copies Apple - as do many of the companies who are now clamouring to answer Apple’s iPhone.
I’d rather be in the company of those who are actually innovating.
posted by James Gowan on December 12, 2008 #
Posted by STEVE: “The iPhone is a success not necessarily because it IS better technically but because the market BELIEVES it is. That’s business axiom that none of us will ever change - ever.”
Steve, so — since greenbacks and business axioms are you thing, put your money where your mouth is and tell us what phone you think IS “better technically”. I’d love to hear.
As long as people can get Free phones with their services, we may never knows what everyone would truly prefer. Millions untold go for the inferior free tech. So it’s not about people always getting the best tech — ever. With 3G and GPS and the App Store, the iPhone is certainly ONE of the best phones available, you have to give it that. I think the browser experience is tops and Video and Audio has certainly never been better on any other phone. Having access to the WiFi iTunes store (and 7 or 8 million songs) is certainly another huge feather in Apple’s cap.
And Steve, remember: better is not just a laundry list of features.
posted by James Gowan on December 12, 2008 #
I always wanted to love the sidekick, it SHOULD have been great but it was just SO closed. Maybe I just wasn’t aware of it but the hacker dev community on the iphone is great and opens up so many possibilities. With the sidekick I couldn’t even get my im type of choice. Of course I was in Australia at the time and getting a sidekick at all was difficult.
posted by scott parsons on December 12, 2008 #
I can’t help but see this blog post as nothing more than the bitter ranting of a sore loser that possibly has racial issues to deal with.
Really, anyone that’s going to make the case that the iPhone is a knock off of a side kick is just absurd. I appreciate you mentioning that up front as lose your credibility right up front. In this way, the rest of the article can be read strictly for entertainment purposes.
I’m not knocking the Sidekick. It’s a decent phone. No doubt, there will be some things that it (and many other competitors) do better than the iPhone. However, taken as a whole, the iPhone is in a class by itself. From a user experience perspective, the iPhone has set the bar so high that other “decent phones” simply fall of the radar as they just don’t matter. That may be a harsh reality, but it is reality nonetheless. It is software that distinguishes one smart phone from another. Few companies understand this are are equipped to challenge Apple here. RIM has a lot of momentum going and will be a player for quite a while primarily due to the corporate market. Android is the only OS that currently has the potential to compete. As we’ve seen from the G1, they still have a bit of polish to before they’re a real challenger.
posted by Steve on December 12, 2008 #
@Steve: Beta was better technically but lost to VHS for non-technical reasons. Apple markets to an audience that for the most part buys on experience not technology - the two are NOT one in the same. MS prides itself on tech and just copies Apple’s UI lead. Which one is the better business to be in? Time will tell.
As with the claim that Apple borrowed its UI from PARC, your first claim is an urban legend. More importantly, your distinction is a false one, a point Apple continually tries to make. The UI — the “experience” — is not something that one slaps on top of “technology,” but something that must be integrated into the whole. Otherwise you get horrid inventions like the Blackberry Storm.
In a testing laboratory, Beta (supposedly) had higher picture quality, but that’s not the same thing as being “better technically.” (In the real world, on the shelf at the store, consumers couldn’t tell much difference in quality.) More importantly, though, is that Beta tapes had little capacity. You couldn’t put a whole movie on one; it only could hold one hour of video. That’s not a “non-technical reason.” That’s experience, which is a technical reason.
Don’t confuse something like the color of an iPhone with the design of it. The former may be non-technical; the latter is not.
posted by David Nieporent on December 12, 2008 #
@Steve:
“The iPhone is a success not necessarily because it IS better technically but because the market BELIEVES it is. That’s business axiom that none of us will ever change - ever.”
You’re almost right. It’s not that the market believes the iPhone to be technically superior, it’s that the vast majority of the market doesn’t care about technical superiority.
The iPhone is sexy, well-marketed, and - the most important part - EASY AND FUN TO USE. All its technical limitations and compromises were made to make the average user happy. Apple excels at build quality, style, and user experience, and it’s why their product share continues to grow at the expense of others’.
The Sidekick was a great device, and if the original crew were still designing new revisions, it would give the iPhone a run for its money within certain market segments (people who type a lot, tech savvy people). But that’s not the reality, sadly, and the iPhone has simply out-competed the Sidekick.
posted by Darren on December 12, 2008 #
Oh please. The iPhone kicks the sidekicks ass. You’re delusional.
posted by dave on December 12, 2008 #
I used my sidekick every day since it came out and never had to replace it. The thing was indestructible — I repeatedly dropped it down stairs and stepped on it and used it in the rain with no problems.
Still works today, although the keyboard is peeling a little. Wonder why everyone else had such a different experience.
posted by Aaron Swartz on December 12, 2008 #
“it was obvious [the iPhone] was a knockoff of the Sidekick”
This is just a completely idiotic statement. No matter how good the Sidekick is (was?).
posted by pwb on December 12, 2008 #
Android, and the G1 in particular, should serve sidekick users well. It combines most what’s good about the IPhone, (strong browser with touchscreen), and the Sidekick, (good keyboard, trackball). It’s definitely not perfect, there are core applications that still need improvement, but they will be improved.
posted by mathiastck on December 12, 2008 #
I second the recommendation for Instapaper - it’s an addiction-enabler for voracious reading addicts like myself. It does all kinds of cool reformatting, like stripping comments from blog posts and other administrative debris. Plus, as an added bonus, articles are also available on the regular browser version as well, so you can flip back and forth between iphone and desktop reading as needed. I got hooked on the web version before the iphone app, actually.
posted by Al Abut on December 13, 2008 #
The iPhone was much more than evolutionary. It’s just hard to see this because the iPhone does what it does so well. I don’t think I truly had a grasp of this until I got a chance to try the BlackBerry Storm… it’s only by the comparison that the problems Apple wrestled with and overcome become clearer. For instance, it becomes clear that the “physics” of scrollable lists (momentum, etc.) wasn’t a gratuitous nicety or eye-candy… it was important to making the touch interface viable at all.
There’s no question the iPhone’s keyboard is its weakest point, but Jobs must have (correctly) identified a significant target market for which the overall experience, including size savings from not having a keyboard, was more important. Moreover, this decision forced Apple into not relying on the keyboard as a crutch, which likely paid dividends in other parts of the interface (compare the G1 for example, where the keyboard is at times a crutch). That said, I suspect a keyboard-bearing version of the iPhone is closer than most people think.
posted by Alan Yeung on December 13, 2008 #
I had never seen a Sidekick in person, but recognized one in a couple scenes in a movie I watched last night. I think that the biggest problem with the Sidekick was its enormous size. The thing looked as big as a Newton, and I suspect that one could make similar arguments about the fact that it did not take the world by storm either.
“Not quite” often makes for a huge chasm to cross in consumer acceptance.
posted by Bret on December 14, 2008 #
Absolutely. When folks asked me if I was buying the iPhone when it first came out, I’d always reply “Nope, I’ve already owned a Sidekick.” And then they’d look at me like I’d said the most illogical thing ever uttered. I blame T-Mobile and their youth-only marketing. But some people like Marc Cuban saw through it all, even back in 2004 — http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/archives/2004/09/mark_cuban_give.html
posted by Noah on December 15, 2008 #
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